Jacob, I'm sorry if you were responsible for this, but the pervasive use of that artificial depth of field effect was distracting and annoying. Everything else, though looks good. I agree with Dual that I'm much less concerned about the quality of these new maps now. If anything, there might not be this (extremely questionable) "Judgy von holier than thou/this is Halo by the people who made Halo" attitude. I'm okay with "Halo by people who like/enjoy/appreciate/play Halo" instead, might be why I've had such a good time with Community Slayer (Bungie's horrible Matchmaking logic aside). Also, holy shit at Certain Affinity becoming a relatively full-featured studio (50 people!). XBLA does pay off, I guess, because those Halo 2 maps were decidedly not good. Also, I glimpsed Jeremy playtesting these beasts, but no Coco P. cameo - too much sexy?

Jacob, I'm sorry if you were responsible for this, but the pervasive use of that artificial depth of field effect was distracting and annoying. Everything else, though looks good. I agree with Dual that I'm much less concerned about the quality of these new maps now. If anything, there might not be this (extremely questionable) "Judgy von holier than thou/this is Halo by the people who made Halo" attitude. I'm okay with "Halo by people who like/enjoy/appreciate/play Halo" instead, might be why I've had such a good time with Community Slayer (Bungie's horrible Matchmaking logic aside). Also, holy shit at Certain Affinity becoming a relatively full-featured studio (50 people!). XBLA does pay off, I guess, because those Halo 2 maps were decidedly not good.

I disagree about the depth of field being annoying. I quite liked it. It was obviously something added in and I think they didn't overdo it all and choose some nice scenes in which to use it. it also helped lend a unique visual identity to the documentary which worked out very well considering the how strongly they pulled from the visual language of previous Bungie halo Vidocs. It struck a nice tone of familiarity with a nice, signature style that was entirely their own.

After finally having had a chance to put both the traditional multiplayer maps through their paces with the appropriate amount of players and a few tense, fun games, I have to say the Defiant Maps are a credit to both 343i and CA. Without going into any detail, they did a fantastic job and knocked it out of the park.

Also, the sneak peak behind the scenes showing us development footage of the maps and explaining the development process and giving us usual visual examples of how the maps changes during production was invaluable to someone like me that appreciates the creative and design process that goes on behind the scenes. I really hope they keep this kind of thing up going forward, it would please me to no end to know that in future, we'll get the same kind of behind the scenes access with future Halo items.

I was sceptical but optimistic a few days ago and now I'm a firm believer. 343i can handle the fiction and the rest of franchise just fine but now I'm confident they'll do the actual games justice as well. If Defiant is just a sneak peak into the future of Halo, then I'm sold for the next decade.

I played Unearthed with Dani and Ghaleon on Fri night, and even though it was laggy as shit it was the best time I've had in Firefight since the game came out. I felt that I had a good amount of room to drive the warthog around unlike Beachhead.

I haz a question.
How come in Condemned, Reach has three moons? Or does Csodaszarvas conveniently rotate around to the other window every time you walk by it to make the view that much more interesting? I know 343 wouldn't overlook a detail as obvious as this, so... does it signify anything?